You never know what rules and challenges our players will have at our annual golf tournament.

If you did not make it to our last Rotary Club of Forest Grove meeting, here is what you missed…

Golf Tournament Next Week: Our annual golf tournament is this Wednesday at Sunset Grove Golf Course. Even if you do not plan on playing, make sure to join us for our regular meeting at noon and enjoy fellowship with fellow Rotarians and friends.

Let’s Welcome Our New Inbound Exchange Student, Fareeha!: Our 2023-24 inbound exchange student, Fareeha Nayebare, will be arriving in Portland on Monday, Aug. 14 at 11:55 a.m. We are excited to have her join us in Forest Grove this year.

If there are club members who would like to go to Portland International Airport on Monday and help give Fareeha a great welcome, please let President Amy know. She will be joining Melinda Fischer, Parri Van Dyke and Marni Doerfler, who will be part of Fareeha’s first host family as part of the greeting party.

Fareeha will stay with the Doerfler family for the first part of her exchange. The second exchange family is working through the Rotary application process. We are still in need of a spring host family. If you are interested, please contact Melinda Fischer.

Rides For Fareeha: As part of her exchange experience, Farreha will need rides on Wednesdays from Forest Grove High School to our weekly meetings, wherever they may be. For many years, Pete & Parri Van Dyke have performed this service for the club. But they would like to share the wealth with some other members. If you are interested in helping, please let Parri or President Amy know.

Maui Wildlife Relief – Your Help Is Needed: This week has been a tragic one for Rotarians, families and friends on the Island of Maui. The fires across the island have changed lives forever. Truly devastating. Our sympathy, thoughts and prayers are with everyone impacted.

As people of action, we can take immediate action. As we come together to recover and rebuild, we need to support each other. We need to Create Hope for Maui.

Through our Rotary District 5000 Foundation, a relief fund has been established. Foundation President Dave Hamil and Treasurer Sharon Amano will handle all donations. The Rotary District 5000 Foundation is a 501(c)3 organization and all donations are considered charitable.

A committee will be organized shortly to find the greatest needs for distribution of monies. Monies will be used to make the largest impact based on needs and will be sustainable. A single fund will be the most helpful over time to provide the greatest significant benefits.

Please consider donating to this special fund. Click Here To Donate To The Rotary District 5000 Foundation Maui Fire Relief Fund.

Stay safe, take care and mahalo as we Create Hope for Maui.

Mark Merriam
Rotary Club of Metropolitan Honolulu
District Governor, Rotary District 5000

Weekly Meetings At The Cornelius Public Library: With construction taking place at Pacific University, and our regular meeting space being utilized as classrooms, our weekly meetings will be off campus for the foreseeable future. Until at least January, our regular meeting place will be the Cornelius Public Library, 1370 N. Adair St., Cornelius. Please plan your Wednesdays accordingly.

Name Badges – The Rules Have Changed: With the move to the Cornelius Public Library, members were asked to take their badges home with them at last week’s meeting. Normally, we would fine members for taking their badges home…but it is now the opposite. Please bring your own badge to the meeting to avoid a $1 fine. All fine money collected goes towards the club’s contribution to the PolioPlus fund.

If you were unable to pick up your name badge when we were at Pacific, please let President Amy or secretary Janet Peters know to see if arrangements can be made to reunite you with your badge.

Changes In Lunches – Advance Orders: With our meetings moving away from Pacific University, we are struggling to find the right number of lunches to provide for our meetings. For the last few meetings, the club has had to pay for lunches that went unclaimed at a cost of $15 per lunch.

In order to try and mitigate these costs, the club is going to try a pre-order approach for lunches. There will be two ways to order your lunch:

• Sign up for lunch on a sign-up sheet that will be distributed at weekly meetings.
• Email treasurer@fgrotary.org by no later than noon on Friday before the following week’s meeting.

Lunches will only be ordered for those who pre-order. If you order lunch, your account will be charged regardless of your attendance. The club cannot continue to subsidize the cost.

If you have questions or feedback, please contact President Amy Tracewell.

Thank you for your patience as we work through this change in our weekly meeting location and logistics.

Steak Feed Update: The money is all in and we can now report that the 2023 Steak Feed was our best ever! We made $9,460 as a club, which will go to benefit our involvement in the Rotary Youth Exchange program. Thank you everyone for your hard work and especially to Geoff Faris and the Steak Feed committee!

Concours d’Elegance Committee: If you are interested in getting further involved with the Concours d’Elegance, our annual car show, the steering committee is always looking for volunteers to prepare for the show throughout the year. For more information, contact Tom Raabe at 503-704-1200 or rotarytomr@gmail.com or Geoff Johnston at 503-939-7868 or gamsma@comcast.net.

Past Programs: Did you miss a meeting or want to go back and check out a program again? Most of our programs since May 2020 (over 100 videos to date) are archived on our club’s YouTube page. Visit https://bit.ly/fgrotaryprograms.

Service Opportunities For Club Members
Corn Roast: The Forest Grove/Cornelius Chamber of Commerce’s annual Corn Roast & Harvest Festival will take place on Saturday, Sept. 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. along 21st Avenue and College Way adjacent to the Pacific University campus. The chamber, as they do every year, is looking for volunteers to help with set-up, takedown, trash collecting and more.

If you are interested in volunteering, please visit the event’s Volunteer Sign-Up Page to select your spot. If you have any questions, please contact Claudia Yakos at 503-720-8133 or info@fgchamber.org.

Forest Grove Oktoberfest: The City Club of Forest Grove will be conducting its third annual Oktoberfest on Saturday, Sept. 23, 1-7 p.m., in downtown Forest Grove. This family-friendly event is expected to be larger than ever with vendors, activities, music food and beverage.

The organizing committee has asked if our club would like to have a booth. They have also asked if the club would come up with a carnival-like activity to have at the booth. If you are interested in spearheading this for the club, or if you have ideas, please let President Amy know.

There are also a number of volunteer opportunities to help make the event a success. Volunteers will receive a free t-shirt and either a 2023 Oktoberfest commemorative stein or a food voucher.

If you are interested in volunteering, Visit The Oktoberfest Volunteer Page for available shifts. For questions, contact Donna Gustafson at cityclubofforestgrove@gmail.com.

FGHS Community Food Pantry: Our club’s support for the Forest Grove High School Food Pantry continues.  Thanks to its partnership with the Oregon Food Bank, food donations are still welcome but are of less need at this time. Of need, however, are toiletries and hygiene products as well as household cleaning materials.

During the summer, the Food Pantry is open Mondays from 2-3:30 p.m. The pantry will be closed on July 24 and Sept. 4. The pantry is located along Nichols Lane between the football field and the Basinski Center. Click Here for more information on the FGHS Food Pantry and on other resources for those experiencing food insecurity.

For information on the Food Pantry, please contact Brian Burke, bburke@fgsd.k12.or.us. If you wish to make a cash donation to the pantry, Click Here.

Additionally, Rotarian Gwen Hullinger has put together an Amazon wish list of items that can be purchased and donated. Click Here To View That List.

Around District 5100
Vibrant Club Workshop: Club leaders (and anyone looking to help Rotary grow) should mark their calendars for Saturday, Sept. 30, 8 a.m.-12 p.m., for District 5100’s Vibrant Club Workshop. Designed to help club’s grow and become more educated about Rotary, the workshop will go over foundation work, public image, membership and much more. Information on location will be forthcoming.

District 5100 Newsletter: Click Here To View The Monthly District 5100 Newsletter

Around Rotary International
Mário César Martins de Camargo of Brazil Selected To Be 2025-26 Rotary International President: Mário César Martins de Camargo, a member of the Rotary Club of Santo André, São Paulo, Brazil, is the selection of Nominating Committee for President to become Rotary International’s president for 2025-26. He will officially become the nominee on 15 September if no other candidates challenge him.

De Camargo plans to boost Rotary’s public image by working from the top down.

“Rotary today has strong competition for members and funds,” he says. “We need to rejuvenate the brand, especially in some zones. We should utilize post-pandemic meeting tools … to allow the president to address Rotarians all over the globe. We also need to develop more long-term partnerships with political, community, and business leaders. Let’s emphasize our greatest asset: 1.4 million volunteers.”

He also hopes to improve Rotary’s process for appointments and governance.

“Rotary should adopt a more transparent system to appoint volunteers for positions, with clear criteria and data-based evaluation of results,” he says.

De Camargo was president of Gráfica Bandeirantes and has been a consultant to the print industry in Brazil. He has also served as president and chair of several printing and graphics trade associations, including the Brazilian Association of Graphic Technology and ABIGRAF, the Brazilian Printing Industry Association.

He has served on the board of Casa da Esperança (House of Hope), a hospital sponsored by his Rotary club that serves 150,000 children with disabilities every year.

De Camargo studied in the U.S. and Germany and holds degrees from EAESP-Fundação Getulio Vargas in business administration and Faculdade de Direito de São Bernardo do Campo in law.

A Rotarian since 1980, de Camargo has served Rotary as director, trustee, RI learning facilitator, committee member and chair, and task force member.

De Camargo and his wife, Denise, are Major Donors and Benefactors of The Rotary Foundation.

To learn more about de Camargo, read his interview and vision statement, which outline his goals for Rotary.

This story was originally published on the Rotary.org website.

Last Week’s Program: Tim Schauermann & Carl Heisler, The Last 50 Years Of Rotary

As we look ahead to the 100th anniversary of our club, we will have speakers to talk about the history of our club. Last week, Tim Schauermann and Carl Heisler presented on their experience in our club and in Rotary over the last 50 years.

Tim and Carl both joined the Rotary Club of Forest Grove in 1973 within just a couple of months of each other. Carl joined on May 1 and Tim joined on July 1. To date, there are five Rotarians who have been members of the club for at least 50 years: Tim, Carl, John Minor, Paul Minor and Richard Kidd.

Tim first talked about the advent of Rotary Youth Exchange. Our club’s involvement in youth exchange began with Ray Miller, the 1966-67 president and the governor of the district we now know as District 5100 in 1969-70. Ray encountered a local family that had a problem with another exchange organization. Ray believed that Rotary could better manage and run an exchange.

Through his contacts both in the community and within Rotary, it is believed that Ray Miller helped start and expand the Rotary Youth Exchange Program in the U.S. and fostered the concept of exchanges between Rotary. (NOTE: The first Rotary exchanges were initiated by the Rotary Club of Copenhagen in 1929. In 1974, the Rotary International Board of Directors made youth exchange an official program of Rotary International).

With the club now involved in youth exchange, we had to pay for our involvement. Ray Miller’s solution was to hold a community steak dinner at his home on Stringtown Road. The first Steak Feed saw 700 people come out to his property, with all proceeds benefitting the club’s involvement in the exchange program.

Tim and Carl described how club members would move tables and chairs from Pacific University to the Miller property, work the Steak Feed and then move everything back after it ended that same evening. Needless to say, it was a lot of work. In 1975, the club moved the Steak Feed to the Pacific University campus where it continues to be held today.

The history of women in Rotary was discussed. Clubs in the U.S. began to rally for adding female members in 1972. In 1977, the Rotary Club of Duarte, California inducted a woman for membership. Rotary International responded by pulling the club’s charter. Over the next decade, litigation made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled in 1989 that service and business-based clubs could not exclude women.

Tim, who was club president in 1977-78, remembers going to the Rotary International Convention that year thinking that the matter of women in Rotary membership would come up for a vote. No vote ever made it to the floor.

Once women were allowed to join Rotary, our club readily admitted women. Marge Johnston was among the first women to join the club. Roma Gallinger became the first female president of our club for the 1995-96 Rotary year. Tim believes that she was one of the first female club presidents in the United States.

The addition of women to our club, however, was not without its growing pains. Tim remembers five older members of the club who threatened to quit if women were admitted. In the end, he said, most did not but several ended up retiring due to their advanced age.

Tim and Carl closed the presentation with a short history of how our Concours d’Elegance car show began. The show was the brainchild of Rotarian Al Stephens, who convinced club leadership to use the show as a fundraiser. Al visited every classic car club from Medford to Seattle to drum up interest in the show and convinced Portland television stations to run ads to promote it.

Admission to the first Concours was $2 per person, which worried club leadership because the show had run up thousands of bills. In the end, an estimated 10,000 people attended and the club more than made up the cost of the show. By the fifth year, an estimated 18,000 people attended the Concours. That fifth year, the club went through so much food that it bought Safeway and Hank’s out of hot dogs, hamburgers and buns. It still wasn’t enough.

In later years, admission to the show was raised substantially to not only provide for more profit for the club’s Scholarship Program, but also to limit the crowd to a more manageable size.

Club Calendar
Wed., Aug. 16: Golf Tournament/Weekly Meeting
Lunch at noon, golf at 1 p.m.
Sunset Grove Golf Course, 41615 NW Osterman Rd., Forest Grove

Thurs., Aug. 17: Board Meeting, 7 a.m.
via Zoom

Wed., Aug. 23: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Cornelius Public Library, 1370 N. Adair St., Cornelius
Program: Club Assembly

Wed., Aug. 30: Weekly Meeting, Noon
Cornelius Public Library, 1370 N. Adair St., Cornelius
Program: Nancy Boyle, How To Support Your Favorite District Governor